The committee members fell silent one by one as they turned to look at Renee and Rafe. Renee felt her throat go dry and she tried to swallow past the sensation. The committee moved as one to sit behind a long table situated with its back against a wall of windows. The sun had set, so the city was growing darker with every passing moment. The lights in the buildings beyond were lit in the background. They had come up so many stories that there were few buildings in competition with this one height-wise. It made for an extraordinary view.

“Sit,” the shortest of the five invited her, pointing to a lone chair facing the long table they were taking their seats at.

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather stand.”

“You are fighting our desires already? This does not bode well,” the leader said gravely.

“I am not here to cower from you,” Renee snapped. “Let’s get that straight first off. I am here for you to evaluate my character. Nothing else.”

The leader looked surprised that she would talk back to them, but it didn’t seem to rouse his temper. At least, not on the outside.

“Please,” the black man said softly, his demeanor quiet and firm. “The interview might take a while. If you sit you are less likely to grow tired and will need fewer breaks. We all want this over as soon as possible. We all have other places we would rather be at this time of day.”

Renee let his words sink in and then slowly moved to take a seat in the chair. “You see?” she said. “I can be reasoned with. Rather than give me a bald command, you can explain your reasons behind your request and I will weigh them accordingly.”

She crossed her legs and settled back in the chair. She glanced at Rafe. “Doesn’t Rafe need a chair?”

“Rafe won’t be staying. He will be waiting outside.”

Anxiety immediately clutched at her belly. She wanted to argue with them, she wanted to insist that he stay, but she had no power to insist on anything. She was completely at their mercy and if she wanted this to go well she had to turn herself over to them entirely. She gave Rafe’s hand a squeeze then let go of it. He paused briefly to stroke her hair, then walked toward the exit in the room. At the last moment he turned back to them and said, “Remember, all of you, that her life is on the line. If you judge against her, you are consigning her to death. I hope this is not a decision you will come to lightly.”

“You do not need to tell us how to do our jobs or what our responsibilities are,” the leader said sharply.

“Thank you,” the black man said firmly. “You can trust that we will take all information into our decision.”

Rafe nodded and then left the room, the door shutting softly behind him.

“Let us start with proper introductions. I am Danton,” the black man said. “Our leader here is Josef. These other three are Tomas, Carlton, and Frazier.”

“It’s nice to meet all of you,” she said with her very best manners.

“We are glad to meet you as well,” Danton said warmly. “Although, this is quite the reverse of what we usually do. Tell me, have you told anyone about us since you were made aware of our existence?”

“No one,” she assured him.

“Were you tempted to?”

She thought of Jimmy and how he was walking around in ignorance. She thought of how his being close to her could put him in danger he wouldn’t understand.

“I was tempted, yes. But only inasmuch as I wanted others to be aware of the danger they were in just by being around me. I was worried for the safety of my friends. I thought that maybe if they knew they might be able to better protect themselves from a sycophant.”

“But in the end you decided not to tell. Why?”

“Because knowing about you would be putting them in just as much danger as not knowing about you. They are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. That and…it’s not my secret and not my place to say when or if it should be revealed. That should be up to you and your people entirely. Although, I do hope that one day you find humans worthy of your trust. I understand why you feel you must stay hidden, and knowing people the way I do, with my unique perspective as a homicide detective, I don’t disagree with your thinking.”

“How so?” Josef asked.

“I see a lot of crime driven by prejudice and hate. Almost twenty-five percent of the murders I deal with are motivated by hate or bias in one fashion or another. Bias against color. Religion. Gender. Sexual orientation. You name it. The human race, for all its diversity, really sucks at accepting that diversity.”

“We have seen this for ourselves,” Josef said. “But it is not just a matter of diversity. For us it is a matter of survival. We need to feed off humans. Can you imagine how humans would feel if they realized we were feeding from them?”

“They would feel used and would be afraid. Rightfully so, I might add. I know how I felt when I found out that I was fed from.”

“By Rafe. And yet now you accept him and what he has done to you. You accept him in spite of the necessary deceptions he has been forced to carry out.”

“I accept him because he came clean with me when it really counted. Even though he knew he was breaking your laws.”

“And now that you know, would you let Rafe feed from you again?” Danton asked.

To Renee’s surprise, she didn’t even hesitate. “If he had no other choice, if he truly needed me, I wouldn’t turn him away. In fact, I would offer myself to him. And I think you might find that there are many people in the human race who would do exactly that. They would volunteer to feed your people. The would groom themselves to be the proper vessels you needed just for the pleasure a feeding would give them.”

“That would be considered deviant behavior by your people no doubt,” Josef said grimly.

“There is much we do in our society that is considered deviant behavior by some, yet accepted wholeheartedly by others. BDSM, for instance. There are those who are disgusted by it and those who cannot live without it. But it is all legal for the most part. There are other things, like child pornography, that are illegal, but even they have their little societal niches. It’s sick, but it’s there.”

“Are you comparing us to child pornographers?” Josef asked harshly.

“I only said there would be a niche of people who might find the idea of being fed on as exciting and thrilling and something they cannot do without. There are people who will like being a food source.”